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Yes. Or worse. Human nature exists and it doesn’t change. Ignoring the Invisible Hand is to ignore what it means to be human. Read the book Animal Farm if you
by briandear 9y ago
Yes. Or worse. Human nature exists and it doesn’t change. Ignoring the Invisible Hand is to ignore what it means to be human.
Read the book Animal Farm if you haven’t already. That captures the psychology of communism perfectly and demonstrates why it never, ever works.
- ivanbakel 9y agoAnimal Farm is not an anti-communist book. The first half captures communism working perfectly well under the rule of the Lenin-Trotsky analogue - the animals work hard, are well-fed, and organise themselves to create new industry - the windmill - with the goal of eventually eliminating the need for labour. Everything goes to pot when the Stalin-analogue takes over, because the book is a reflection of Orwell's opinions of the Soviet Union and his experience fighting with the communes in Spain and the subsequent purges committed Stalinist factions against the Trotskyists. If you read the Ukranian prologue, which is included with most modern published editions, Orwell even outlines that Animal Farm is an attack on Stalinism, and he firmly believes in socialism.
- SauciestGNU 9y agoIf that's what you took away from the book then I'm afraid you did a shallow reading of it. Animal Farm was specifically a critique of Stalin and the USSR, and how Stalin hijacked the revolutionary vanguard and turned it into a fiefdom for the loyal party members. Orwell himself was a left anarchist and staunch antifascist and anticapitalist. His critique is that of authoritarianism. If you take away from Orwell that he supports capitalism in any form then you may have missed his point.
- yequalsx 9y agoThe takeaway of Mao, Stalin, Kim Jong Il, etc. is not that communism is bad but rather that concentrating too much power in too few hands is bad. For instance Hitler, Shah of a Iran, etc. Especially when the leaders have simplistic notions. For example, Idi Amin, Maduro, Baby Doc Duvalle, etc.
- ameister14 9y agoSure - communism simply requires the centralization and concentration of power and so is incredibly vulnerable to authoritarian takeover.
- AstralStorm 9y agoSince when a prerequisite for communism is nationalisation? As far as I'm aware the actual communism was supposed to be ran by worker committees and not "party" or "leader". And does not have to involve central planning at all. Do not confuse it with authoritarianism. Or stalinism which was a variant of it.
- ameister14 9y agoI'm not confusing it, I'm going from what Marx and Engels said. "Only conscious organisation of social production, in which production and distribution are carried on in a planned way, can lift mankind above the rest of the animal world as regards the social aspect, in the same way that production in general has done this for men in their aspect as species. Historical evolution makes such an organisation daily more indispensable, but also with every day more possible." "If it should become necessary for communist society to regulate the production of men, just as it will have already regulated the production of things, then it, and it alone, will be able to do this without difficulties. It seems to me that it should not be too difficult for such a society to achieve in a planned way what has already come about naturally, without planning, in France and Lower Austria. In any case it will be for those people to decide if, when and what they want to do about it, and what means to employ"
- danharaj 9y agoOrganization and planning are not the same as centralization and concentration of power. It would be absurd to conflate the two. So do these quotes justify your claim or not?
- 9y ago
- peatmoss 9y agoI’m upvoting this comment because it would be a shame for the excellent responses to lose their context.